CITY ROOM; Female Smokers, And a P.R. Coup

By JENNIFER 8. LEE

Published: October 11, 2008

Why do nearly one-fifth of women in America smoke? The answer goes back to an event almost 80 years ago on Fifth Avenue, often seen as one of the most successful P.R. stunts in American history.

It has surfaced again with an exhibit of historic cigarette ads at the New York Public Library's Science, Industry and Business branch, ''Not a Cough in a Carload,'' which opened this week. It is curated by a doctor, Robert J.
Jackler, whose mother, a smoker, died of lung cancer.

At the beginning of the 20th century, only women thought to have loose morals smoked in public. But the tobacco companies wanted to change this view. So in 1928, Edward Bernays, often considered the father of modern public relations, was retained by the
American Tobacco Company.

Piggybacking on the suffrage movement, Mr. Bernays persuaded 10 genteel women to march in the 1929 Easter Day parade down Fifth Avenue and light up cigarettes in a defiant show of liberation.

As described in Larry Tye's biography of Mr. Bernays, ''The Father of Spin,'' the news media ate it up. Newspaper pictures showed elegant women, cigarettes held self-consciously by their sides as they paraded down the boulevard.

Soon ''it became acceptable for women to smoke outside,'' Dr. Jackler said. Cigarettes became known as ''torches of freedom.''

The outreach continues. Last year, R. J. Reynolds introduced Camel No. 9 cigarettes, using phrases like ''light and luscious,'' and fuchsia and teal packaging. The imagery, of course, is in striking contrast to a woman featured in
the city's antismoking ad: Marie, who has had 20 amputations because of her addiction to cigarettes. JENNIFER 8. LEE

COMMENT

OF THE DAY

''Sex sells well when the economy is good, and it sells better when the economy stinks and people are depressed. A sad commentary on human nature.''

It's Midtown, in miniature: In the balsa wood model now on display at the Skyscraper Museum, three-eighths of an inch equals 100 feet, but there's no lack of detail. Noon to 6 p.m., Wednesdays to Sundays, 39 Battery Place, Manhattan. See the
slideshow on the blog.

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